The role of knowledge and importance of country-of-origin information in female consumers’ purchase intent of exotic crocodile leather accessories

Abstract:

The study investigated the role of knowledge (objective knowledge and subjective
knowledge) and the importance of country-of-origin in female consumers’ purchasing intent
of exotic crocodile leather accessories. The study was conducted across South Africa and
specifically concentrated on exotic crocodile leather accessories, which is a subset category
in the luxury apparel industry. Consulta Research is a professional research company and
was consulted to assist with the data collection. A quantitative descriptive approach was
followed by developing an electronic survey design. Data was collected by using a selfadministrated
online questionnaire, which was distributed by a research company. A crosssectional
study was used to conduct the research. The data was collected by means of nonprobability
convenient sampling. A total of 337 questionnaires were completed. Scales from
previous research studies were adapted for the purpose of this study. The questionnaire was
part of a bigger study and only five sections of the questionnaire were relevant to this
specific study. Descriptive and association methods were used to analyse the data. Pearson
correlation and Spearman correlation were used to analyse the data by means of
relationships between variables.
This study attempts to differentiate between consumers’ objective and subjective
knowledge of luxury leather accessories. The construct objective knowledge was
theoretically divided into intrinsic-related attributes and extrinsic-related attributes of the
products of investigation. The relationship between objective knowledge and purchasing
intent as well as the relationship between the importance of country-of-origin information
and purchasing intent of exotic crocodile leather accessories was investigated. The findings
regarding exotic crocodile leather accessories showed that females’ objective and subjective
knowledge is limited, did not seem to find country-of-origin information important, had a
weak purchase intent, and indicated that there was statistical significance only between the
female consumers’ purchasing intent and their objective knowledge regarding the intrinsicrelated
attributes of exotic crocodile leather accessories. The limitations of the study are that the results are based on non-probability convenience
sampling, therefore the findings cannot be generalized to the whole South Africa, or to all
the exotic leather industry markets for affluent consumers. One would have liked to have
approached a population group that consisted of affluent respondents with an annual
household income of more than R100 000. The study’s findings can contribute to the South
African exotic crocodile leather industry and specifically to retailers, manufacturers,
tanneries, and marketers. The findings and conclusions drawn in this study contribute to
existing theory and could serve as the basis for future research in consumer behaviour,
consumer science and the luxury exotic leather industry in South Africa.